This morning, in between bites of her first-day-of-school waffle, Mary looked up and said, “If I were you I’d be really sad this morning.” No one knows me like Mary. This school year marks so many milestones for our family, and the lump in my throat has been ready to rise to the surface for
By: Mary Last summer our cousins who live in Vancouver, Canada came to visit us in Virginia! Ellie, Abram, John, and Gabby came without their parents. Their visit was delayed by a few weeks due to a COVID outbreak, and then our trip to Kings Dominion got almost got rained out, and then there was
On a beautiful May morning, Anna skipped across the parking lot, hugged her teacher, grabbed a bubble wand and celebratory balloon and ran down an aisle to hug me. Just like that, she graduated preschool. Later that evening Tom gave Anna a high-five and told her, “For a while there we weren’t sure you were
Anna’s preschool ended in May, just a few weeks before the big kids got out of school. In that in-between time, Anna and I spent a lot of quality time together. We are used to spending a lot of time together, but a few hours of preschool three days a week gave us the exact break we
Just as school is winding down, swim season is ramping up. The swim team is exhausting and all-consuming, but I honestly love it. Three years ago I submitted to the rigorous swim team schedule, and after one season we were a bonafide swim family. I love the social aspect for the kids AND for me,
For the past year or so Anna has slowly been eliminating foods in hopes of settling into an all-pasta diet. Don’t get worried though! She works in plenty of variety. Sometimes she eats spaghetti noodles, sometimes penne, sometimes wheels, occasionally cellentani, but almost never elbows. Our girl has standards. This is the same child who,
I like to think that I’m the kind of person who’s always in a mode of decluttering and donating, but last year I started a new push to move things out of the house. Generally speaking, I consider myself a very, very messy minimalist. My mom just read that and is quietly wondering how she
Hey there! Where was I? Oh yes, that’s right! I was at mile 13 of the Richmond Marathon, thinking about how there are much, much easier ways to find out that 78 degrees is actually a lot hotter than it sounds. (You can find part one here.) At the halfway point of the race it
This year Valentine’s Day looked just like any other day, except that the kids went to school with bags full of weeks worth of handmade greetings. Oh! And Thomas wore a festive red polo shirt! I love the sweetness of kids on Valentine’s Day. I love the tradition of class parties and exchanging cheap plastic
Check me out — Mom of four, the Internet’s last remaining Mommy Blogger, and now you can add *marathon finisher* to my resume. Those smiles are giant fakes. In fact, this bent-over, wilted photo is much more accurate: In short, the Richmond Marathon wasn’t at all what I expected. And, at the risk of sounding